


Until she can breathe again

by TwilightPony21



Category: FBI (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 14:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28921980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwilightPony21/pseuds/TwilightPony21
Summary: OA keeps protecting Maggie throughout a case.  Maggie/OA.
Relationships: Maggie Bell & OA Zidan, Maggie Bell/OA Zidan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	Until she can breathe again

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I think I'm really starting to love the Maggie/OA relationship, whether it's friendship or romantic. I'm still sort of working out how to write them and really look forward to watching their characters develop more on the show. Hope you enjoy this little one-shot. Thanks for reading!

“FBI! Open the door!”

There’s no response, and Special Agent Maggie Bell gives a quick nod to her partner.

Special Agent OA Zidan taps the SWAT team member in front of him on the shoulder, and the old warehouse doors shatter easily under the battering ram. It takes only a few seconds for FBI agents to swarm the building, spreading out from their orderly lines to search the area.

“Clear!”

A number of clear calls ring out from all directions, but it’s more than clear that there’s no one in the building. Nothing seems to have been disturbed since the place was abandoned, and the thick layer of dust has been collecting there for a long time.

“Wherever he went, it wasn’t here,” OA says.

Maggie agrees. She doesn’t see any sign of their suspect hiding out here.

“Agent Bell, Agent Zidan, you might want to see this.”

One of the other agents motions for Maggie and OA to follow her into another room. It’s a smaller storage room just off the main entrance, and it’s mostly the same mess of cobwebs and dusty furniture, but there’s a single message scrawled in bold letters on the wall:

_Watch your back, Special Agent Bell._

~*~o~*~

“All right, people, this guy is in the wind and he’s made a threat against one of our own. Let’s find him.”

It’s late in the evening now, but Jubal’s crew in the JOC remains hard at work when Maggie and OA return to 26 Fed.

Maggie leans against a desk, her arms crossed over her chest, watching her partner pace anxiously and bark out orders. As Jubal coordinates the search for the criminal who somehow knows her identity, OA coordinates her protective detail. She wonders if that isn’t overkill, but Isobel and Jubal agree that it’s a legitimate threat, and she’s about to have an army of federal agents surrounding her apartment tonight.

“Maggie, go home,” Jubal says.

She’s about to protest, saying that she can’t go home with a criminal on the loose, but Jubal’s already anticipating her argument and he holds up a hand to silence her.

“Maggie, if this guy wants to strike again, I’d rather he come after you while you have fifteen agents backing you up.” He nods his head toward her partner. “Go on…have OA take you home.”

~*~o~*~

OA cooks her dinner, and Maggie is genuinely impressed with her partner’s talent for authentic Egyptian dishes. The mix of meat, vegetables, and spices tastes wonderful and it makes her realize that she’s been running on nothing more than coffee all day.

He spends the rest of the evening stretched out on her couch while she’s curled up in her favorite plush chair, both of them sharing stories from his time as an Army Ranger and her time as an Indiana cop, and then somehow it’s almost midnight, and she can’t help but yawn.

“Maggie, go to bed,” OA says. “I got your back tonight and Scola will be here in the morning.”

Maggie isn’t sure why, but she finds that she doesn’t really want to argue with him.

“I got it,” he says, reaching for her plate, and he’s carrying the dinner dishes to the kitchen before Maggie can object.

It’s been a long time since she’s felt this _domestic_ with someone. It hurts a little that it isn’t her husband Jason anymore, and it might feel more domestic if OA weren’t wearing Kevlar and holstering a gun at his side.

“You okay?” he calls from the kitchen, noticing that she hasn’t moved from her chair.

Maggie quickly shakes off her thoughts and nods. “Yeah, of course. I’m fine. I have ten armed federal agents outside my building, another four inside…and I have you,” she adds softly.

~*~o~*~

“Agent Zidan, there’s movement in the hallway headed your way.”

OA is on his feet with his gun drawn before the call even finishes coming over the com.

He quietly cracks open the door to Maggie’s apartment and catches the motion of the shadowy silhouette. The other agent talking in his ear tells him that there’s back-up coming up the stairs, but there’s no time.

There’s a flurry of angry, startled shouts and a few sharp punches thrown as OA tackles the intruder to the ground and pins his arms behind his back.

“Nestor?”

Of course the commotion gets Maggie out of bed, and of course she’s standing there in a tank top and pajama pants wielding a gun because _of course_ she sleeps with a weapon under her pillow, and it’s not the first time that OA wonders why his partner needs protection at all.

Reluctantly, he allows Special Agent Nestor Vertiz to scramble to his feet and brush himself off.

“Sorry,” OA says, and he wonders if it sounds sincere.

“Nestor, what are you doing here?” Maggie asks, and she sounds sincerely annoyed as she lowers her gun. “It’s past one in the morning.”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay,” Nestor replies. “I heard they had you under some kind of protection.”

“Yeah, a suspect found out my identity and made a threat,” she says dismissively.

“Well, in that case, I should really make sure that you’re well-protected in that bedroom all night long.”

Nestor’s eyes light up suggestively, and OA resists the urge to roll his.

And when Scola arrives well before the start of his shift the next morning, OA tells himself that he’s grateful to have a break from duty, but maybe it’s really that he doesn’t want to see Nestor exit Maggie’s bedroom with that satisfied smirk on his face.

~*~o~*~

“Where’s OA?”

Maggie strides into the JOC early that morning with Scola close on her heels.

Jubal gives her a confused look. “I thought he was with you?”

“Scola arrived at my apartment this morning, but OA’s gone.”

Jubal’s brow furrows in disbelief. “I know his shift ended, but I was sure I would have to order OA to give up your protective detail.”

“He wouldn’t give it up,” Maggie assures him, and she’s starting to feel an ugly knot in her stomach that something just isn’t right. “I’ve been calling him, but there’s no answer—”

As if on cue, she’s interrupted by a ring tone as OA’s name flashes on her phone screen.

“OA?” Maggie answers quickly.

“Hello, Special Agent Bell.”

It’s a deep, staticky, robotic voice, and Maggie instantly mouths _trace_ to Jubal, but he’s already got their computer tech Ian running the software.

“Yes, this is Special Agent Bell,” she says calmly.

“It is so nice to finally speak to you,” the robotic voice says haltingly.

“And who am I speaking to?”

“I am no one.”

“Really?” Maggie asks, intentionally trying to draw out the conversation. “Because this is my partner’s number, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t my partner.”

“It is not,” the voice confirms, “but I wanted to hear your voice, Special Agent Bell…before I tell you that your partner is going to die.”

There’s an abrupt click and Ian can see the question in Maggie’s eyes before she asks.

“He turned off the phone before we could get an exact location,” Ian explains. “We triangulated a general area of about three blocks, but we can’t be sure which building he’s in.”

Maggie barely hears him, as she’s already on her way out, her eyes flashing with anger and determination. “Then I’ll kick in every damn door in three blocks if I have to.”

~*~o~*~

But she doesn’t have to when she finds a bloody handprint swiped along a white fence outside one of the houses within the three-block radius. It’s a pretty yellow cottage with a garden of purple flowers, and it doesn’t look incriminating, but Maggie is instantly on alert and she calls for back-up.

“FBI!” she calls out, but she doesn’t wait for an answer before kicking in the front door. She knows her partner doesn’t have much time left and every second counts now.

She dives for cover behind a wall as gunfire sprays from all directions, and she returns fire as best she can until Scola and his back-up team come charging through the door.

There are at least three shooters down – maybe more – and Scola’s already cuffing their wrists, and Maggie knows he has things under control as she silently dashes up the stairs.

There’s a bedroom door cracked open at the far end of the hallway, and Maggie is surprised to hear the sweet sound of a woman humming a song.

She’s even less prepared for what she stumbles upon as she opens the door, a young woman with a long, blond French braid down her back. She’s tall and graceful, and her cheeks are rosy and her eyes are bright, and maybe she would have seemed innocent enough if it weren’t for the gun in her blood-stained hands and OA’s unconscious figure lying next to her on the floor. Maggie’s stomach churns as she can’t tell if her partner is alive, but she can see a pool of blood beneath him and what looks like fresh blood running down the side of his face.

“FBI! Put the gun down and get on the ground!”

“So we finally meet, Special Agent Bell.” The woman’s voice is oddly calm and gentle.

“Who are you?”

“As I told you before, I am no one,” she replies quietly.

“You kidnapped and assaulted my partner,” Maggie informs her. “That’s someone to me.”

“But I’m not Special Agent Maggie Bell!” she snaps angrily. “Oh, no, I’m not a federal agent. I’m not a woman who has everything or whose beauty is adored by every man who lays eyes on me. I’m just no one…no one at all.”

The woman’s voice has lost all sweetness now, replaced by sheer bitterness, and Maggie realizes that the violent suspect they’ve been chasing all along is simply a woman scorned.

“If you have a problem with me,” Maggie argues, “then take it up with me. Let my partner go.”

“He protects you. He wouldn’t let anyone near you last night.”

“Because he’s a good agent,” Maggie says, keeping her voice steady as she feels her heartbeat quicken. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Scola stealthily approaching the bedroom, his weapon trained on their delusional suspect.

“No, no, no!” the other woman shrieks, shaking her head violently. She crouches next to OA’s motionless body and runs her index finger tenderly along the side of his face. “It’s more than that. He said I should shoot him rather than hurt you.” Her eyes suddenly narrow and take on a sinister gleam. Slowly, she stands and cocks the gun. “But something tells me it would hurt you more if I shot him.”

She doesn’t come anywhere close to shooting him, though, because Maggie empties a clip into her first. Scola rushes forward, kicking the suspect’s weapon away, and Maggie drops to her knees beside OA.

“Scola, call an ambulance!”

She barely registers Scola’s voice in the background, urgently calling for medical assistance, because now her only focus is on her partner’s lifeless face.

“OA, come on,” she pleads.

She’s frantically wiping the blood away, trying to see how deep his wounds are, but there’s too much blood, and she doesn’t know how long it takes before she hears the ambulance siren, but it’s not fast enough. One of the paramedics thinks that he has a weak pulse, but Maggie thinks that maybe it’s because she’s pounding on his chest, willing him to live. Scola is trying his best to pry her iron grip from OA’s body so the paramedics can do their job, but she doesn’t want to leave her partner, not when there’s a chance that she could lose him, and suddenly her chest tightens and she can’t breathe anymore.

And it’s not until Maggie hears OA faintly breathe her name that she finally starts to breathe again.


End file.
